All of us, in one way or another, have been or are still exposed to threats from cybercriminals looking to make a quick buck. Gone are the days when cybercrime was mostly about standing up to The Man, now it’s all about the Benjamins for these gangs – and that’s what’s sobering. Direct monetization is a much more enticing incentive for most people than activism, hence the continuous rise of cyberthreats.

This brings us to the subject of this infographic, which is the ENISA Threat Landscape (ETL). The ENISA, or the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security, is a center of network and information security expertise for the EU, providing support and guidance to EU member states, the citizens and the private sector. The fifth in its series, the ETL 2016 summarizes the most prevalent cyber threats of the year through analysis of open-source material.

And, it goes without saying that despite having the term ‘European’ appearing first in the name, the topics covered by the report are globally relevant.

As you can imagine, there is still no end in sight for cybercrime and it looks like the trend of its monetization is here to stay. Bad actors seem to have a knack of always being one step ahead.

That is not to say that our IT security teams have been stagnant: we’ve also seen white hats achieve advantages in attribution, gain experience in attack mitigation, and improve coordination with law enforcement to disrupt threat agents.

However, it still proves to be insufficient.

It’s sounding more and more like a bad cliché every time we say it, but the security talent shortage is preventing defenders from gaining ground on the attackers. AI and machine learning may eventually unlock a world without cyberthreats, but for the foreseeable future, strengthening the importance of security education and training is our best bet to counteract the current and future skills and talent gap.